If I run it then it will be using Castles and Crusades simply because 3.5 is a little too bloated for me. I may work it into the Castle Zygag setting somehow. Savage Worlds would be a simple conversion. If people are interested I can put something together.

In any event it won't be for a while since I'm currently running a very successful Warhammer FRP game. I may use the mine layout for something here.

For me, what makes C&C great is it's simplicity. There are no feats and no skills. What this does is put the GM back in charge of the game. As GM you adjudicate what needs to be rolled and whether or not a certain character is allowed the roll. It uses its simple and elegant Siege Engine mechanic for this.
What bothers me about 3.5 is that all too often it turns into a competative game of players vs. gamemaster where clever ideas are rarely rewarded since the rules get in the way.
C&C is a back to basics take on d20 with a 1st Edition AD&D feel. Die hard 3.5 players will most likely hate it, but it wasn't written with them in mind.

I'm not sure what i'm going to use. I've never been a fan of D&D at all really. I much prefer MERP so I'll probably bash the adventure to fit that. MERP is such an easy system and i've played it for so long it won't take long to do.

Unless someone can sell me on a different system that doesn't get bogged down in rules and dice rolling...

Have you tried Savage Worlds Mr Blackhammer? I'm not going to try to sell you on it in this thread, but I do encourage you to consider it.

That being said, I do ask that everybody use the Lets Talk RPG(s) forum for general RPG discussions and keep this thread specific to Something Below.

It looks like the Savage Worlds players make up a third of the pie so far. Maybe we ought to talk conversions a bit? Some are easy to do right out of the book, of course. Zombie + (Pick) Axe = Zombie Miner.

I was having troubles with the Shadow though. I tried giving a Ghost the Lower Trait and a Zombie powers, but when I was done I wasn't sure how it would actually kill its victims. Lower Trait doesn't kill when it hits the lower limit, and probably shouldn't. Any ideas?

For me, what makes C&C great is it's simplicity. There are no feats and no skills.

And (surprising nobody) this exactly what I don't like about C&C.

The major reason that I had drifted away from AD&D was the lack of a coherent skill system, and putting one in 3.0 was what drew me back. I suspect C&C is one of those systems that you either love or hate, and that it mostly attracts those who are disillusioned with 3.5. (Nothing wrong with that, I am not going to show up with the 3e Thought Police and force you to adopt the One Tru Game, heck, I don't think that there is a One True Game.) One more quick observation - C&C seems to attract a lot of old school gamers who began (like I did) with the first version of D&D back in the '70s or the Basic Game in the 1980s... So I would guess that it does a very good job of catching that old school feel.

That said, I rather like True 20, another simplified spinoff of 3.5, in particular the character generation takes a lot less time. For those who find 3.5 a chore yet want something approaching a coherent skill system this might be a good compromise. I may adopt it for my summer game.

As for 3.X becoming a contest between DM and player this has indeed happened to me (twice since 3.0 came out), both times I demonstrated that there can really be only one winner in such a contest, and the player was shown the door*. In reality though, most player are there to game, not get into a fight with the DM.

Perhaps strangely, one of the things that I really like about Spycraft 2.0 is that it puts curbs on the games master's powers, like the PCs he gets Action Dice, and like the PCs if he wants to do something special he needs to spend 'em. The net result has been that I have been more willing to do things that go beyond what an NPC is likely to try. If there are rules for it then it does not feel like cheating!

And, to get back to the original topic - I will most likely see how SB can be twisted around to fit into either the Iron Kingdoms or my 1600s homebrew, both of which use 3.25. (I kept some of the rules from 3.0, which is probably why they do not allow me in the 3.5 Thought Police...)

The Auld Grump

* One of those two players would actually be accepted back in, as long as he acknowledges that just because a PrC is in an 'official WotC book' does not mean that the DM has to be willing to allow an Ooze Master or Samurai in an Iron Kingdoms game...

If there is a flood of people voting for "Other," then sure, I'd like to see a new poll with more system options too. But, as I expected, there is a low volume of people voting in that category. Actually, there is a pretty low volume overall, since I limited it to Something Below. Maybe it'll pick up over the weekend.

But hey, I think knowing that about 1/3 of the people who are buying SB are doing a Savage Worlds conversion is pretty interesting info all by itself. Risk of starting a flame war aside, why not make a more extensive poll in the RPG forum? We might discover that an even higher percentage play SW as well as noticeable percentages of other systems.

Sorry, I can't help but take a moment to rant about WWG and SW. Pinnacle seems to be taking a break from fantasy to put some focus on other genres. This means there are a bunch of Savage Worlds players that are itching to buy more fantasy products but don't have many places to turn. On the other hand, D&D is a tough market to break into because adventure modules are everywhere. What good is avoiding a licensing fee if you don't get noticed? It just seems to me that it would be a lot easier to draw customers from the outside by making Savage Worlds products in addition to or instead of D&D. *sigh*

*edit* I forgot to mention that people who vote for "Other" are highly encouraged to post what they plan to use. Inquisitive minds want to know.

I haven't really given much thought to the bash of SB yet. Still making the scenery. I've got some quiet time over the next few days and once i've finished putting it together (just the intersections and a few floating walls to make) i'll have a look. I'll let you know what i come up with.

Sorry, I can't help but take a moment to rant about WWG and SW. Pinnacle seems to be taking a break from fantasy to put some focus on other genres. This means there are a bunch of Savage Worlds players that are itching to buy more fantasy products but don't have many places to turn. On the other hand, D&D is a tough market to break into because adventure modules are everywhere. What good is avoiding a licensing fee if you don't get noticed? It just seems to me that it would be a lot easier to draw customers from the outside by making Savage Worlds products in addition to or instead of D&D. *sigh*

For the most part I agree Nys. I think we'll try to form a better relationship with the Savage people this year and see where that takes us.

That's great to hear Denny, I hope it goes well. The sooner you guys can get a deal with Pinnacle, the better. With their newly formed alliance with Wizkids, I imagine the popularity of Savage Worlds will likely explode in the near future, as might the licensing fees.

I'm new to WWG, so my build progress is pretty slow. However, I'm eager to do a converted game and do some posts on the Pinnacle forum.

While I'm 100% a Savage Worlds guy, and would love to see the WWG modules released with Savage versions, but I do have to say this. The D20 market is a WAY bigger market than the Savage Worlds market, and % of the market you need to grab to make money on a product is much smaller. I can see why you'd start with D20 and then make a Savage version rather than the opposite.

Heck, even some of the Savage Licensees (Legion and 12 to Midnight come to mind) both do D20 and Savage products, and often release the D20 ones first.

When you can't run anymore, you crawl. When you can't crawl, find someone to carry you.

Heck, even some of the Savage Licensees (Legion and 12 to Midnight come to mind) both do D20 and Savage products, and often release the D20 ones first.

::trying hard to not say mean things about d20::

Very true, but supplemental income sure doesn't hurt. I think it would be very much worth the extra time to convert to another system. I'm a HUGE Savage Worlds fan so I'm definitely down.

::Trying hard not to say mean things about SW::

However it is a lot easier to get the D20 license to use than one for SW... Plus I suspect (not know, just suspect) that unlike WotC PEG (or GWG, depending on who you ask...) will want a cut. Love it or hate it the free D20 license brings in a lot of publishers.

The Auld Grump - Slightly on the negative side of neutral towards SW...

It's true that the PEG license is not free, but I still think it would be profitable to do converted SW versions alongside the d20 version. The SW crowd are very loyal and will pick things up on the name alone.

Greetings and well met, forum members. As I am new to these postings, I thought it only proper to wish you all hello. As for my gaming experience, it began in the '70's with D&D First Edition, and went through Runequest, Harn, GURPS, White Wolf, EarthDawn (which I wrote modules for in the EarthDawn Journal in another life), and now tell stories using a slightly modified Savage World system. It was through using Savage World and links found there that I discovered WorldWorks and found it to be a perfect compliment to what the folks at PegInc were doing. Evernight used various fantasy sets but CaveWorks was perfect for it. SeaWorks was perfect for 50 Fathoms, while Urban Mayhem is great for Necessary Evil. Many of the storytellers and players I know have purchased copies of WorldWorks products for their Savae World campaigns, and it is a built-in customer base. That said, though I am used to quickly converting adventures from one system to another, many storytellers do not have the time or inclination and would certainly purchase an entire fantasy setting prewritten for Savage Worlds, especially if it came with story-specific scenic props. Anyway, that's my 2 pence worth of opinion, value it as you may. :D

A wandering harper am I, with songs to sing and stories to tell and adventure waiting around every corner.
Dryw ap Carillian
Clearsong Bardic College

I'd like to look more into Savage Worlds before I try it (is there a good beginer resourse somewhere?) I've only ever known D20, but that was back in 2nd Edtion, and that was just a little. Now I can't even recall how it works...

I always perfer simple and fun, over complicated and bulky. I often enjoy HeroScape , just not much role playing in that though.

Brandonn, you can download the Savage Worlds test drive rules from the PegInc website. Go to Downloads section and look for "Test Drive" rules. It gives a quick overview of the rules, and is enough to get a feel for it.

When you can't run anymore, you crawl. When you can't crawl, find someone to carry you.

Savage Worlds is a good system. I ran a game for a while set in the Firefly 'verse -- the TV show, not Firefly Games. After looking through several universal rule sets, including Traveler d20, I settled on SW. It just fit the genre. Fist fights were common and guns are deadly.

After the movie "Serenity" came out the offical RPG also titled Serenity soon hit the store selves. It looks like I was not the only one who though SW fit the Firefly genre.

But that's not the point.
Put me down as OTHER because I will be using Action! System.

It would be good to get a kitbash that we could download and run SB almost straight out of the packet. Make it sexy enough and you might get a nice job title out of it!It has happened.

My time is somewhat valuable so there would have to be enough interest in it. Maybe a poll?

Actually, we have someone on-staff who would be willing to do so...he's chomping at the bit to do it, actually. The problem is that unlike D20, Savage Worlds charges a licensing fee to make an adventure compatable with their system.

As such, we're still in a holding pattern on this. We'd LIKE to have full SW compatability with our adventures, but that requires some further discussion and negotiation between Denny and them. Which also, alas, means that we can't accept any sort of fan-generated kitbash version that could potentially jeopardize said negotiation.

I've been wrong before...and of course Denny can overrule me on this, but that is my understanding on the matter.

I have written for:

Patron saint of papercut martyrs.

Guru of all things Kitbash, proud to carry on the traditions of Aubrey.

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